There’s a concept that gamers seem to “get” to varying degrees – the idea that real life is more important than game life. Sometimes this refers to situations where someone needs to leave a game abruptly – a child needs to be put to bed, the dog needs to be let out. Sometimes this refers to a more broad situation – a player can’t be there for a group activity because of work or another prior obligation. For myself right now, it’s pretty vital as I try to balance the idea that this blog was “supposed” to primarily be about gaming with the fact that I have other interests, and other things going on in my life. Continue Reading
Fear the mooshrooms! Ok, maybe not fear per se; but wanna know how much fun it is leading them across the ocean that’s a million miles away just to get them to your tower? 😛
I was slow to get into online multiplayer games. When I was a kid, most multiplayer was in person (cue sad trombone over the “death” of couch multiplayer) and when I was older I just didn’t have interest. Most of my adult life has been spent in retail management. After spending all day interacting with so many people I tended towards being pretty asocial after work. I just didn’t have much interest in spending my freetime with anyone other than my close friends. Sometimes not even them. Continue Reading
Full disclosure: I’m editing this on weird sleep. The joy of force rebooting your sleep schedule by staying up all night! I’m usually at least coherent even sleep deprived; but if not you know why. I also swear I’m not trying to piggyback off Tyger on the topic of creativity! For those who don’t follow his show, he posted earlier in the week asking for gamer stories of creativity. It just so happens that I’ve stumbled into one of my heavy writing kicks at the same time. ^^
Anyway. Moving on.
As mentioned, I’ve been getting back into my fiction writing lately. This isn’t where I grandstand about writing the next Great American Novel since I find that pretty unlikely – but there is a blog-related side effect. I’ve always gamed less when I’m in the middle of writing fiction. Getting a blog going, reading, walking the dog, crazy weeks at work – none of those seem to have much effect on my game time, but my “real” writing always has. I don’t think it’s only due to a lack of time or because I have a habit of tunnel vision (though I’m sure both do have an effect). I suspect it’s because both writing AND gaming can be creative pursuits – that they both scratch a similar itch/use a similar type of energy. Continue Reading
So, I had other topics I could have babbled about, but then this month’s Game Director letter dropped for The Secret World. I could geek over the whole thing; but then I’d have nothing to say on the podcast tomorrow. 😛
It did remind me of something that not all companies do well, though – listening to their audience. In this case, their new player audience. Continue Reading
A side effect of this blog – a planned and wanted side effect! – is that it encourages me to revisit some of my fiction writing. I don’t expect to pull a novel out of every random bit, but the process of writing here is a nudge to look at writing I’ve done elsewhere and at other times. That’s something I can learn from; and in this case something that got me thinking about the, “If you don’t like what’s out there; just make it yourself” type of response I see in some gaming discussions. Continue Reading
So, yeah, not going to be much of a post today. Had an “exciting” dental appointment and my brain is mush. To make up for it, I offer otters graciously donated by Tyger. 🙂
Also a quick screenshot of one of the single player games I’ve been playing lately: The Bridge. Nifty little puzzle game where one of the mechanics is tilting the world around you to manipulate yourself and other objects. It’s most likely on the list of things everyone else has already played. ^^ Other than the puzzle parts, I’m liking the black and white hand drawn style and, of course, the way the areas remind me of work by M. C. Escher. There’s an underlying story that I haven’t played enough to really flesh out, but it intrigues me.
And that’s really all I got in me tonight. Cannot haz brain, dental stuff stole all of it!
Somewhere in the middle of chatting about The Secret World on a stream for another game, ’cause I’m like that, I was reminded of something I used to love in my games that doesn’t seem to happen as often anymore – the need for a pen and a pad of paper. [I suppose, light spoiler warnings for the pics I’m using later in the post. Myst and Obsidian are awfully old for spoiler warnings though, and the TSW mission is from one of the earlier missions in the Savage Coast area.]
I remember making maps for The Legend of Zelda and jotting down melodies in Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. The old text games of course; I needed my own maps and notes there. The Myst games, before they added a screenshot option and less so after, were responsible for plenty of time spent writing and drawing things out. I think I took notes for most of my early PC games, there were always a few puzzles that made more sense if I wrote it out or a maze that became much easier if you drew a map.
Am I the only one who feels like participating in the game in that way drew me into the story and world of the game more? Perhaps I should rephrase since I know plenty of folks who agree with me, it just feels like games are more often made to streamline that part of gaming right out the door. Continue Reading
Fridays are about to get busier over in Gryph’s world. 🙂 A friend of mine is starting up a new Pathfinder campaign and with any luck I’ll be jumping into that next week. (For those unfamiliar, it’s pen and paper roleplaying, similar to Dungeons and Dragons.) We’ll see what that does to my attempted schedule over here – go fig, I decide to start writing more with my free time and I add a couple more regular livestreams to my schedule. I’m certainly not complaining though!
A few of my friends initially told me that updating three times a week was being hard on myself, but I swear it made sense when I started. >_> In any case, it gives me an excuse to write about gaming that isn’t limited to video games. Continue Reading
This post is all me, incidentally; I’m not reflecting the views of my friends or anyone I livestream with.
I’ve gone through multiple drafts trying to explain why I didn’t post anything this Monday, but maybe it’s better to be brief. There was a topic related to gaming that I very much wanted to talk about. However, it was tangentially related to topics that friends of mine have been harassed over. Ironically the core topic was related to harassment in the online gaming community.
So, to put it together, I wanted to write about harassment issues/solutions in gaming, but hesitated because I know people who have gotten harassed because they talked about harassment issues/solutions in gaming.
I could further explain, but for now I just wanted to be honest about it. Right or wrong, I wanted to write about something and then stumbled because I wasn’t entirely certain it was a smart idea to give my entire opinion. And if I’m going to write dishonestly, I’m defeating the purpose of writing at all.
Probably I will still cover the actual main topic, given more time to think. But for anyone convinced the last chunk of months in gaming only affected folks who are well known, or who “have an axe to grind,” or who probably aren’t “real” gamers, or that it’s only scared sheeple blindly following the biased media, you are mistaken. Take from that whatever you want to take, but hopefully I can at least make that point.
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Blog will recommence on gaming topics Friday. I decided last July (timing!) that it was past time to both start writing again and to start looking into careers in the gaming industry. I’ll post about that second one eventually. The point today is that it makes what I’m doing here doubly important to me and also makes it rather harder to ignore topics that friends of mine in the industry, online media, and academia are still very much dealing with.
LFGryph 